The following morning, as Max moved through the campus courtyard toward the business department, his mind had already crossed the threshold of the university for the last time. He had reached a cold, final conclusion: he was going to quit.
He realized now that his desire to attend university had been a partly foolish dream—a sentimental attempt to grasp a normalcy that had never truly belonged to him. He was a creature of the Underworld, a leader of the Billion Bloodline, and he was currently operating in a theater of war that made lectures and exams feel like a distracting charade. It was time to shed the skin of a student and focus purely on the objective that had brought him here: Randy and the Stern legacy.
However, resolving the "Donto problem" while still physically tied to the university presented a minefield of complications. Despite Donto’s thuggish behavior, he was still a scion of the Stern family, backed by an ocean of wealth and political influence. Max had to move with surgical precision. If a massive, violent incident occurred on campus and the police were called in, the fallout could be catastrophic. Max knew all too well that in a legal battle between a "troubled" scholarship student and a high-profile celebrity athlete from a dynasty family, the authorities would side with the money every single time.
To win, Max needed to force Donto’s hand using the one thing the athlete couldn’t buy his way out of: information about his father. He needed to corner him without creating a public spectacle that would bring the eyes of the city down upon them.
The secondary issue, and the one Max’s tactical mind kept circling back to, was the sheer scale of Donto’s influence. How many people were truly under his thumb? Was it just the soccer team, or did the rot extend to every senior in the sports department? If Max intended to initiate a takeover, he had to account for a small army of physically fit, aggressive enforcers who were already being primed by the blue pills.
’I have assets here, but I have to be careful how I use them,’ Max mused as he walked. ’I could call on the Bloodline students already enrolled—there are plenty who would jump at the chance to prove their loyalty—or I could utilize Aron’s presence as a janitor to initiate a silent strike. But I don’t want to mix the two worlds.’
Max felt a rare pang of protective instinct toward the younger members of the Bloodline. He didn’t want to ruin their genuine opportunity for an education by dragging them into a gang war. More importantly, he despised the idea of a fake system of loyalty. He wanted men who followed him because they believed in the Billion Bloodline’s vision, not because they were trapped by fear or debt. That was why he had never instituted the draconian "no-exit" rules that governed groups like the White Tigers or the Gilt Rats. If someone wanted to leave the Bloodline for a better life, he let them walk.
’But the longer I linger in this classroom setting,’ Max thought, his gaze sharpening, ’the higher the chance that someone like Jono or Talia will get caught in the crossfire. I need to move, and I need to move fast.’
Max had set off for class much earlier than usual, hoping the morning air would clear his head and allow him to arrive in peace. What he didn’t realize was that his presence was being sought by two familiar faces from his past. Rick and Aki were waiting near the main walkway, their expressions clouded with a mix of worry and curiosity. Their recent interactions with Max had left them unsettled; the "Max" they were seeing now was a shadow of the person they thought they knew.
When they failed to spot Max in the early morning crowd, they decided to wait, eventually spotting a group of four first-year students approaching from the dormitories.
"Wait, I recognize those guys," Rick said, stepping forward. "They’re in the same business department block as Max. Maybe they’ve seen him this morning."
As Rick and Aki approached, the four freshmen—Jono, Steve, Talia, and Yovan—visibly stiffened. After the violence of the last few days, they were perpetually on edge, wondering if every stranger was another senior enforcer sent to collect a debt. For a moment, it looked like they might actually bolt in the opposite direction.
"Hey, take it easy! You guys are from the business department, right?" Rick asked, raising his hands in a non-threatening gesture.
"Man, these guys are wound tight," Aki noted, her eyes settling on Jono. She noticed the fresh bandage across the bridge of the boy’s nose, which Jono was currently trying to press back into place. "And it looks like one of you has already had a rough morning. Or a rough night."
"We’ve had a lot of rough moments recently," Steve answered, his voice defensive. He looked the two newcomers up and down, searching for any sign of a sports club insignia. "You guys aren’t seniors, are you? Are you here to give us more ’presents’?"
"Relax, we’re first years just like you," Rick answered with a friendly shrug. "We’re just looking for a friend of ours who’s in your department. Do you know a guy named Max Smith? We were hoping to catch him before his first lecture to see how he’s settling in."
The reaction was instantaneous. All four students stopped dead in their tracks, their heads swiveling toward Rick and Aki with looks of utter disbelief. Why was it that everyone seemed to be asking about the quietest, most problematic student in their class? From their perspective, Max was a social pariah—a man who wanted to be alone and whose very presence brought nothing but misery and muscle-bound thugs.
"Trust me, if you actually care about your health, you don’t want to get involved with Max Smith," Yovan said, her voice dripping with a mixture of fear and irritation. "He’s being targeted by the heavy hitters on campus. I think if anyone is seen standing too close to him, they’re going to get dragged into the nightmare he’s created. It’s not that Max himself is ’bad news’ per se, but the people who are after him are monsters."
To the group’s surprise, Rick and Aki didn’t look terrified. Instead, they shared a quick look and started to giggle—a genuine, amused sound that felt entirely out of place given the tension of the conversation.
"Are you seriously saying you’re worried that Max is going to take a beating?" Rick asked, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. "Well, we aren’t worried about that at all. Not even a little bit. We were just wondering if he was acting too moody in class or if he seemed like he had something on his mind."
It was the exact opposite of the reaction Jono and the others had expected. They stared at the two boys as if they were speaking a foreign language.
"How do you even know him?" Steve asked suddenly, his curiosity overriding his fear. "Why are you so confident?"
"How do we know him? We’ve known him since our high school days," Aki answered with a smirk. "We’ve seen what happens when people go after Max."
Steve’s ears practically tingled at the response. This was it—the confirmation he had been chasing. These boys knew the Max of the legends, the Max who had ruled the streets of Notting Hill.
"Oh, please, not this again!" Yovan groaned, throwing her hands up. "Steve, did you hire these people to follow us and ask these questions? Because I’m not believing this ’high school legend’ crap for a single second. It’s a fairy tale."
Just as Steve was about to launch into a frantic line of questioning, the air in the courtyard suddenly turned cold. The light of the morning sun was blocked out as a dozen shadows fell across the group. Before they could even realize what was happening, they found themselves completely surrounded by a wall of blue athletic jackets. The soccer team had arrived, and they didn’t look like they were there for a friendly chat.